What we're looking at
State Rep. Lela Alston, D-Phoenix, said teachers face overcrowded classrooms and fewer resources. Alston, a candidate for the state House in Legislative District 24, also is running to retain her seat as with the Phoenix Union High School District governing board.

The comment
"Teachers are facing overcrowded classrooms with fewer resources available to them and to the students."

The forum
E-mail sent from the Arizona House Democrats to the media on Aug. 8.

Analysis
Alston did not specify which school or districts she was referring to in the release. And she could not name specific districts struggling with overcrowding when contacted by The Republic.

"There's none that I can think of that I can identify," she said. "I know they are there because I hear it anecdotally, but I can't recall which schools are having the problem."

Many districts, including the Phoenix Union district, where Alston is a governing-board member, have said overcrowding is not an issue, despite budget cuts.

There is no national or statewide standard to determine an "overcrowded classroom," said Molly Edwards, spokeswoman for the Arizona Department of Education. Each district sets its own classroom-size limit.

Phoenix Union district spokesman Craig Pletenik dismissed statements that classes are overcrowded in his district. The district has not increased its maximum class size since the Legislature began making significant cuts to education four years ago, he said.

"Overcrowding for us has more to do with physical limitations on the campuses. Right now, we are OK in that area. We are not in danger of bringing in (portable classrooms)," he said.

The Arizona Office of the Auditor General said Phoenix Union's student-teacher ratio is lower than the state average. The district's ratio is 17 students to one teacher, while the state average is 18 students to one teacher.

Nationally, the number of full-time public-school teachers has increased by a larger percentage than the number of students over the past 10 years, resulting in declines in the pupil/teacher ratio, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

In fall 2001, the number of public-school students per teacher was 15.9, compared with a projected number of 15.2 public-school students per teacher in fall 2011, according to the group.

However, some Arizona schools have experienced what they might consider overcrowding.

An Arizona Republic article from March said that students at Cave Creek's Cactus Shadows High School had to go to a nearby elementary school for some classes because there hasn't been enough classroom space in their own building for four years.

"At lunch, most of the 1,800 students wait in long lines and then eat in classrooms because their high-school cafeteria can hold only 400 students," the article said.

Alston said that teachers and students also have fewer resources available to them.

The Legislature's most recent cuts to education -- from kindergarten to universities -- totaled about $450 million in 2011. Legislators said the public K-12 system lost about $148 million.

Arizona ranked first in state funding decreases over the past five years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C.

There was a 21.8 percent drop in funding from fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2013, according to the study.

Districts across the state are increasingly relying on overrides and bonds to fund programs and building projects.

Pletenik said that has been the case in Phoenix Union district, which successfully convinced voters to approve a $230 million bond in 2011 to fund construction. However, voters did not approve a $13 million capital outlay override that would have funded technology equipment and other classroom materials.

"Almost all of our cuts have come in non-classroom areas," he said.

Southeast Valley districts also cut their classroom spending in response to budget cuts.

The auditor general's annual report on Arizona school-district spending showed that classroom spending in Gilbert Public Schools during fiscal 2011 was $3,817 per pupil, down nearly $290 from $4,106 in fiscal 2010. Classroom spending in the Higley Unified School District during fiscal 2011 was $3,264 per pupil, down more than $220 from $3,487 in fiscal 2010.

Schools in the southwest Valley face similar challenges.

The Litchfield Elementary School District cut the amount of money spent on classroom supplies to help deal with a $1.6 million gap, according to an Arizona Republic article. The district will ask voters to approve a 15 percent maintenance and operations override this fall to restore programs cut over the last several years.

Bottom line: There's no state or national standard to determine whether classrooms are overcrowded -- and Alston couldn't name specific districts -- so it's difficult to determine whether her statement about overcrowding is true. Some districts dispute the term "overcrowded," but there is evidence of overcrowding in some Arizona schools. Arizona classrooms also have a higher student/teacher ratio compared with other states, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Multiple districts also confirm that the Legislature's reduction in education funding has left them with fewer resources.

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AZ Fact Check is a service of The Arizona Republic, 12 News and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. It is not affiliated with www.FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.